Courtesy of Loki’s link on how the Kerry Administration plans on combatting terrorist groups:
“They divide the problem into segments:
1. Focus on Winning the Struggle of Ideas.
2. Invest in Education and Development in Islamic Nations.
3. Implement Tailored Strategies for Key Countries.
4. Defuse Sources of Islamic Hatred for the United States.
5. Improve U.S. Intelligence and Law Enforcement Organization.
6. Reinvigorate Efforts to Combat Terrorist Financing.
7. Bolster Special Forces and Improve Their Coordination with Intelligence Community.
8. Accelerate Security Investments for Ports, Trains, and Chemical Plants.
9. Strengthen and Improve Oversight of Nuclear Terrorism Prevention Efforts.
10. Improve U.S. Energy Security by Reducing Reliance on Middle East Oil.
Looking at their point, one by one, we begin to see a very different strategy than the one pursued by President Bush, and one that is likely to be close to the center of what a Kerry Administration might do.”
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Thanks, Loki. That approach works for me. But I can see where anyone with a vested interested in an unfocused generic “War on Terror” (as opposed to specific human beings committing terrorist acts) wouldn’t want us to have an effective workable strategy. Because it is (a) effective and (b)relatively inexpensive, it wouldn’t boost the huge corporate contributors to the Republican Party. They would be heartbroken if we ever did have a coherent and rational foreign poicy, because they would lose out on the concomitant exorbitan expenditures of our precious national resources on unrelated and irrelevant weapons systems (anyone yet figure out how a missile defense shield would stop a nuclear attack in a truck from Al Qaida? I didn’t think so).
And only during a period of “war” (remember, “I’m a War President.”) can the Republicans try to get away with trashing civil liberties and uncontrolled defense expenditures- and winning elections despite their horrible record on the environment, the economy, health care (and on and on. They need a “War on Terror” that will never end, because the “war on drugs” has lost its cachet, especially since the anarchy in Afghanistan has resulted in record opium crops in that country without a single effort by U.S. forces their to derail their providing the heroin supply to the U.S.
Remember the infamous $87 billion program that Kerry supposedly voted for, then against? Two points: one, it came after the war (5 months after “Mission Accomplished” 7 after the war started) so it makes Bush look incompetent for asking for body armor after the war, not before. Two, how much of the $87 billion went for body armor and armored vehicles? Answer, probably not more than one billion. The rest was corporate pork for Halliburton, Blackwater, Titan Corp., Veridian, etc. on our “outsourced” privately contracted war in Iraq. The only thing I fault Kerry for is not pointing that out on national TV during the debate- it would have accurately made Bush look like an incompetent and corrupt leader.
